Face To Face Support Vs Telephone Support For IFAs

Back in the good ol' days well before I was in financial services, in fact most likely before I even left school! Financial services product providers all had teams of 'Road Warrior' business development managers running all over the place meeting financial advisers and their staff to brief them on the latest changes in their products and treating the decision makers to three hour lunches.

We've come down a long road since those days and the vast majority of providers don't even have face to face business development managers any more. Many older advisers have often complained to me about this situation and the providers who do still offer face to face support shout it from the rooftops as if it is something to be proud of.

Contrary to what seems to be the common feeling I have never been keen on face to face support and I will explain why. My time is valuable, the vast majority of face to face business development managers have no interest in enriching my time or business. They are simply targeted to get as many appointments in their diary as possible. They have been trained to believe that if they can just get on friendly terms with an adviser then business will surely follow. There is some truth in the last part but only if they demonstrate the quality of their product and their competence in dealing with the relationship. However most don't grasp this and just want to buy you a tea/coffee and maybe a sticky bun and tell their boss they've seen you.

Frankly my time is too valuable to waste on tea and sticky buns but if that is how a provider wishes to operate it is up to them as long as I can get the support I need when I need it. However this is often not the case.

As an example, one of the UK's biggest mortgage providers use face to face business development managers. I wont name ours or the company but it doesn't work. If you try to call her you never get an answer as she is always in meetings with IFA's or her bosses. Instead you get put through to a support team. You never speak to the same support team member twice and the answers you get are not consistent, you get as many different answers as you do call handlers.

Now the business development manager in question does know her stuff - so you send her an email thinking  I can wait a few hours for the right answer - however sometimes it can take 3 days to get a response. In contrast their biggest rival no longer offers face to face support instead their business development manager is desk bound, this means you nearly always get your calls returned in under and hour and emails too, given the choice I would prefer the second version of support any day of the week.

I was pretty stuck in my ways until recently, I reluctantly agreed to see a business development manager from MGM advantage. The change was very refreshing (and I still got tea and food!) he sat and explained his offering in a manner that I felt I actually learnt something new - which is very rare when talking to a business development manager! He then proceeded to tell us that he is out and about all the time and although he will respond to calls and emails he wont be fast. Then he gives us a card for a named desk based business development manager 'who is just as qualified' as he is but is on the end of the phone / PC so we can get fast answers.

This seems like the absolutely best set-up possible - so I have to ask why is it so rare!